That kind of power through the front wheels must be interesting to say the least, can imagine 1st, 2nd and third to be pretty unusable in anger.

If you're into the modding thing, there are a lot better cars than a FWD Vauxhall to start with as a base car.

 

I'm off for a drink with Jamie Arkle next week. That £5 is better spent on a beer with him. Four times the info. No advertising. He's a retro boy at heart (well Ford boy tbh) so I can avoid Z20LEH chat for the best part

 

Not to mention the bacofoil transfer box. Mine's locked and holding up with standard B308/X30XE torque. I don't want much more going through it. Very tricky parts to come by now

 

Think I'd spend my money on a second hand RS4!

 

Some of these loons will say that's bought and not built or whatever the saying is

 

I've always been a vauxhall man as well from a young lad and so were many of the guys I bothered with so I can see why I suppose.

He bought it when they first came out and it's gone from there. The turbo is an Owen developments and the gearbox, well just have to see how long it lasts when it comes back out. He's invested in a diff so just waiting to see the car back on the road.

It's his mission to beat my 453hp sti to which I always laugh. He can never get the grip to catch me off the mark, throw in a bit of dampness or rain and it's game over! The speeds he's talking before he catches me I will have been coasting down smiling not disputing he will more than likely have the legs top end but as I said to him, what's the point

 

You can always feel the difference between a quick-out-the-box car and a modified one. The former always feels safe/right and the latter, albeit good fun, always feel unhinged slightly. Just because driveshafts/gearboxes/clutches can just about take a 60-70% power increase doesn't mean it should. You always find people skimping on tyres/consumables too. Call it an age thing but that's just daft. Big brake kit. Check. Budget tyres negating big brake kit. Check. FAIL.

 

Went on a Ford charity run in November and there was a lad there running a Fiesta with 320bhp, he said it was only usable in the total dry. This lad reckoned he had spent a good few grand on the mods and i did wonder why not buy a faster base car to start with.

 

It's when you mutter stuff like that you realise you have grown up to become your Dad at your age when he was berating you for the exact same reason.

 

This is why an Impreza is such a good place to start. They're generally very capable to begin with, the initial outlay can be low and there is an abundance of good quality used parts.

You can't make one faster than a highly tuned Nissan GTR but you can make one bloody rapid for a fraction of that sort of outlay.

 

Lol.It was just big speakers on parcel shelf,spotlights and go faster stripes when I were a lad...oh,and colouring in the name of the tyre with that white stuff....added at least 3bhp

 

I had a Corsa SRi turbo before I bought my Impreza.
Pretty fun car. Got it to 244 bhp / 246 lbft. Not very reliable though, gearbox bearings are bad for going in all of the M32 gearboxes.

Z16 engines are bad for melting pistons, more so number 4, some people put it down to mapping or put it down to the heat and lack of cooling and various injector theory's for cylinder 4. After I sold mine the new owner had it for around 3 months before it threw a rod out the block and another through the sump apparently. Although it was a pretty aggressive map running 23 psi and holding 20 psi on the standard k03 turbo.

The Greeks are probably the better ones to look at when tuning these engines, they are running very high powered setups including some running VF series turbos. Engine has to be forged above 270bhp iirc.

Courtney were probably the better tuners when I had my car, they use Klassen maps whom are based in Germany. Regal and Midpoint garage were into the EDS flash maps which were renowned for running very very lean. RS Tuning were probably the best mappers for the VXR range not sure if they still are, but that's where Specky works who built the EJ20 Corsa and mad Tigra.

I would have another SRi or VXR Corsa if they were cheap enough but it would definitely need a forged lump and an LSD box.